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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27745192">simpler times</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkandbone/pseuds/inkandbone'>inkandbone</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 19:55:55</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,025</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27745192</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkandbone/pseuds/inkandbone</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>for three years he has been alone. no longer.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Anakin Skywalker &amp; Ahsoka Tano, Anakin Skywalker &amp; Original Female Character(s), Obi-Wan Kenobi &amp; Ahsoka Tano, Obi-Wan Kenobi &amp; Anakin Skywalker | Darth Vader, Obi-Wan Kenobi/Original Female Character(s)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. the market</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>ok let me get this straight hunnies the &amp;'s in relationships are meant to symbolise friendship rather than romantic relationships thank u xx</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>
  <span>It sometimes felt like the sun would never stop burning on the fireball surface of Tatooine, like the planet would keep turning and the sun would grow more and more unforgiving with every passing cycle. The heat was a blanket, thick, stifling, unwavering, and never let up through eighteen hours of the day. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The sunrise and the sunset were early and late respectively, just as unforgiving as the sun flares themselves. Two sets of them, spinning in the sky but never quite giving the planet enough resolve to breathe and to relish in a moment of cool.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Not even the breezes seemed to care, harsh and whip-like, scattered with sand and moving faster than tookas spooked from below a speeder. They turned into storms with little encouragement and seared the people sunburnt and sun beaten. With every speck of lost dust, Tatooine slowly grew more and more like the infernal centre of the galaxy. Charred and useless, filled to the brim with simple bounty hunters, simple pod-racing and simple people.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Mos Espa, Mos Eisley, Tosche Station. Each one simmered with the thinning population of this unforgiving rock in space, but neither was better than the other. Mos Espa was brimming with the remnants of slavery, with gamblers and drinkers for the pod-races, filled with scammers and conmen, conwomen. Mos Eisley was small, but notable, the cantina chock full of bounty hunters and transport runners. That’s where most of the illegal cargo gets put through. If you’re not supposed to be on the planet, or get off the planet, that’s where you go to do either. Tosche Station was simple, a normal repair shop often plagued by the less serious and less life-lost souls. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The other settlements were too far gone to be of use. To be of </span>
  <em>
    <span>important </span>
  </em>
  <span>note.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The sun had passed through the centre of the sky an hour ago, slipping past the telescopically thin radio spire that speared through the blue blanket above the radio station. Mos Espa was alive with pod-racing fanatics. There was a race today, so, as per usual, there was no limit to the jostling on the street.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>I’ve been here only a handful of weeks. Nine, to be exact, nine long and hellish weeks searching for something that didn’t want to be found. Someone. I tuck my hair back into my robe, pulling the hood up until it covers me soundly. It’s warm, almost too warm, but good enough to leave me concealed and have no questions asked and no spare glances spared. In the years since the Purge, my hair had grown, now tucked away like the strands are a dead giveaway to any passing stormtrooper goon.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>I sink my teeth into a skewer of bantha meat, slathered in a sticky sweet sauce. For a few credits, it's absolutely delicious, and it delves into the hunger of my stomach ruthlessly, tearing away any semblance of upset from the grumbling pits. I hadn’t eaten in a day or so.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Using Republic credits was slowly becoming a suspicious thing, blinked at once, maybe twice, but accepted anyway. The Republic was dead, yes, my life was dead, but the galaxy was too big to accept such drastic change all at once. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The bantha had come from a less-than suspicious Weequay, more concerned with the group of stormtroopers at least a twenty second walk from the booth. I swallow the mouthful of singed meat and toss the stick in one of the silver cans of rubbish.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The platoon of troopers marched past in succession, rifles hoisted high, helmets tilted upwards with that same sense of ineffable superiority most Empire-brand wore on their sleeves. I adjust my position between the two stacks of bone-white crates, turning my head just as they pass, white boots disappearing through the line of sight from my hiding spot.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>I fasten the hood around my neck and slide from my isolation, folding my fingers through my cloak until I shift like a ghost into another section of Mos Espa marketplace. I don’t know where I’m going. No one knows where he is, and if the Empire finds me, I’m finished. I take another sharp turn into the lower, seedier section of the marketplace- kept hidden by hanging canvases in oxblood and navy, dusted with yellow sands, with leering owners and live produce, blinking at me.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>An Er’Kit in grey robes stares at me when I glance through the open spot in the folds of my dark hair and the hood. He seems to pale, just a little, and continues, marching further into his stall. I panic, just for a moment, until I see him quietly folding his items in the back of the shack. My shoulder brushes a pillar of white sandstone and I manage out into a busier space, speckled with stormtroopers and one officer in pristine grey robes.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They’re so close to my trail. Or his trail.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>I hear a sliver of their conversation as I pass. It’s meager, useless tidbits that wouldn’t serve even the most apt of bounty hunters on their way, but then I hear something.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“A lightsaber?” I stop in my tracks, pretending to root in the dark canvas bag thrown over one shoulder and under the other. I shift, silently, towards where they are hidden, together, the officer and a citizen. The Duros asks in rough Basic.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“We were wondering, kind citizen, if you could tell us where this lightsaber came from.” The officer gestures backwards at a crate just out of my sight, bordered by three bulky stormtroopers. They must be feeding them well now, the other ones I saw last week were a little scrawny. Maybe they’re clones. I swallow, turning my head just perfectly to spot the lightsaber.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It glares like a beam of blue light through the dust-clogged air towards me. There are so many people just milling about, storming and swarming like uprooted beetles, and I think that would just be perfect for me to take it. Just… snatch it out of the air.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The officer stops talking to the Duros when he shakes his head, no, he doesn’t know anything. Hasn’t seen a Jedi since the start of the Clone Wars. I let my forehead knock against the wall I’m pressed against. This is a tough sequence. I can’t plan this out in my brain, everything’s going a little too quickly and my shoulder is hurting again. The stormtroopers from Savareen got a lucky shot off, but I managed to jump into the Emerald Sea and put in my respirator. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The sun suddenly blasts through the open market square and I spot my moment. A group of bustling Talz appear, quite foreign on this planet, but tall and bulky all the same. The stormtroopers are jostled and I leap into the fray, reaching my palm out.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It hits my palm and I feel a euphoria fill me from head to toe. My own crystals are shrieking with glee at the thrill of having another equally powerful kyber crystal so close- so near, to touch. It’s not the one I’m looking for, but hell, my heart throbs like a bird’s wings. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>There’s uproar from the space a few feet behind me and I flee, dipping between two tight wooden stalls for respite. A pair of stormtroopers go running after the Talz, and I watch as they go, examining the officer and remaining soldiers with interest. The officer looks a little upset- face in a fierce scowl, arms crossed, mouth moving in vicious commands as the troopers start to file outwards.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>I make a quick escape, diving between people, at the right pace I didn’t look like I was running but rather just a little quicker than other people. A stormtrooper bumps my shoulder and I shove the saber under my robe. They continue onwards, the crackle of radio interference from their helmet distinct through the warm hum of conversation.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>I slip into a deserted alley. Not even the ripple of shouting reaches these thick sandstone walls, coated with an extra layer of unforgiving sand. The ground is soft beneath my boots but not soft enough I’d lay and fall asleep. My shoes tap when I approach the wall, leaning back against it.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>I manage a hand around the saber hilt and draw it forth from my robes, thumb brushing against the familiar ridges of a familiar foe’s craft. My heart sinks as I stare Anakin Skywalker’s lightsaber in the face. My fingertips shake as I touch it, grazing the black ridges of molten duristeel, the switch like walking through the doors of my old chambers. I don’t turn it on. If I turn it on, he will know. They will all hear the cries of the Mighty Skywalker’s blade. Every Jedi, every Force user, Sith or Jedi or Grey, will hear the heartbreak and the anger in the blade. I slide it beneath my robes.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It tells me where to go.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I know where to go.</span>
  </em>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. the wastes</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>he is alone.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>just wanted to make sure that everyone reading knows about the &amp;'s for platonic relationships... :D</p><p>(also... this is NOT going to follow canon obi-wan before anh. rebels join in a little bit??? i dont know im absolutely unreliable)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Obi-Wan had been alone for a very long time. Owen and Beru decided he was not to see Luke after depositing him off to their moisture farm that late sunset all those fateful years ago. He had just had his third birthday, the anniversary of not only Padmé Amidala’s death, but Anakin Skywalker’s, too. Obi-Wan had never felt such pain in his life.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>His whole world was blackened, turned into ash by the paralysing fear of it all. Day and night he found himself, if left alone or stood still for too long, thinking about falling from that cliff with Boga and being plunged into lukewarm water, thick as bacta, filling his throat and choking him. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He thinks about Anakin. A lot. Too much to be healthy, he thinks of Anakin as that little blonde boy he once was and then he thinks about the amber and red eyes and everything crumbles around him once again. Obi-Wan’s never been good with small expectations of himself. To lose everything and for it all to be his fault had left him scarred and shattered like a vase. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Sometimes he wakes to the soothing whisper of Padmé Amidala, telling him their names. Her children’s names before she died beside him, broken hearted and already dead to the world before she had taken her last breath. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Sometimes he was angry. Sometimes he broke the skin of his knuckles when he thought of Anakin’s foolishness- of his own foolishness. To let the boy wander so far on his own, to be knighted so young and thrust forth onto a politician, a Sith Lord the ambitious and arrogant Jedi had not been able to sense, it made Obi-Wan angry. For once, for the first time since he was a child, he lashed out. He hit things, broke things, cried and shouted.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>After the Purge, he thought he’d left all his tears in the dust. He thought he’d dried out like a Quarren in the desert, but no, he sometimes woke up with wet cheeks and a wet pillow beneath his head, chest hurting like he’d been shot. He cries because of Cody- his Commander, his brother-in-arms, who is still alive. He is still alive, and he is working for the Empire. He is still </span>
  <em>
    <span>alive</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It is inhumane, oblivious torture. It is the worst kind of pain, and when Obi-Wan wakes up with a soft gasp, he knows. It hurts.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“For goodness sakes,” he whispers. His voice is hoarse from a hot morning on Tatooine’s most unforgiving sector, the Jundland Wastes. The only suitable place, Obi-Wan thought, to hide and be hidden by the land. “Ena, leave me alone.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ena. She haunted him. Dark, thick hair, bright eyes, smile the shade of starcherries, she was oh-so divine and oh-so forbidden. That didn’t stop him falling for her, though, and it certainly didn’t stop her.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He rubs his eyes with the balls of his hands, scratching away her angelic glow. There was work to do. Obi-Wan could feel the dust outside settling, some of it and seeped through the small slits in the windows, sitting on the bed frame, on the floor a little.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The isolation of the Jundland Wastes was, what Obi-Wan believed, a rightful punishment for his wrongdoings. There was no hum of Coruscant traffic waves any longer, nor the peaceful sing of Jedi presence through the archaic, echo-aplenty halls of the Temple. There was no tranquility, nor stability, to be found in these thin, pasty-yellow walls. Although the one and a half roomed hut held little, Obi-Wan felt it held as much as he needed. Deserved.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>What did he deserve?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>In one swift motion, he moves from the bed, standing onto bare feet and stretching. Every morning he’d drop his stony resolve to phase back to his old traditions, combat positions, meditating, like the comfort of his old schedule should offer him some sort of pleasure, some sort of self-confidence. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>All it did was paste the idea of Anakin’s golden eyes across the back of skull. It whispered his final, hateful bellows and Obi-Wan often believed he deserved that. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He deserved sorrow.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Sometimes, if it was early enough, Obi-Wan would lay there and he’d think about Ena. Her olive-gold skin, cat-like eyes, graceful and fluid movements as she whipped around with her orange blade. He could taste her scent, gentle and floral, breathe her in like a perfume. He’d fist his hands and close his eyes and lose himself in what little remained in his mind of her.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She was on Cato Neimoidia when it happened. Plo Koon was accompanying her on an escapade to root out some of the remaining members of the Trade Federation, and eventually, from what Obi-Wan had heard little of from the transcripts moments before it all happened, she had faced the droid hordes head on.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Then Obi-Wan had been shot down. His men turned on him, his life turned on him, and he found Master Yoda before he too was cursed to oblivion, soft enough to go back to the Temple and save the children.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They were dead before Obi-Wan got even close. That was what truly pounded him into this ice-cold chasm of carbonite. Frozen, lost, hopeless. Now, he was a hermit moisture-farmer. Like most people on this godforsaken planet.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Obi-Wan knew Anakin would never come back here when he landed. It was a personal hatred and Anakin was overcome with it- he did un-Jedi-like things here. Killed and murdered innocent women and children… he used to be a good boy. A good child, a little too sharp and quick, but </span>
  <em>
    <span>good </span>
  </em>
  <span>and ambitious. He was a good Padawan- he was!</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He stops before the tears begin. He had become so very weak, so susceptible to the haunts of his past, that often he found himself immobilised by the sheer fear that a quiver in the Force often brought him. Perhaps not fear, though, but relief, that he would be brought forth to answer something, someone, and be given duty once more. The pure Jedi in him was screaming for a job, an occupation, a fight- it sounds awful- but something to occupy him. There was no sense for Obi-Wan to stay here doing nothing, living simply for himself and nothing else.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Something was coming, though. Three years and a little more of doing almost nothing with the Force wasn’t shifting his power with it. He was not afraid of what was coming, the suggestion of the future light and frothy like steamed milk.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Obi-Wan cannot rely on hope, though, although that is all he may have.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He moves through the hut with the reserved grace of an old era and opens his conservator. There was little food left for the next few days, but he would make it last. Rooh would help him to Dannar’s Claim and he’d swindle (with charm) some more food from Annileen and Kallie Calwell. They liked him. He thinks it’s the mystery. Maybe the beard.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>After three bites of a small slab of bread and a full glass of bantha milk, Obi-Wan moves, outside, tucking his cloak up over his head. The sun is hard but the dust has settled, scuttling along the floor with only the odd huff of breeze. He bends to the nearest vaporator and starts working.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>This is his new regime, whether he liked it or not.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>After drawing more than enough helpful water from the vaporator to sell, he moves to the next one. Two reliable vaporators are enough for a simple, new moisture farmer, and enough to not draw particular suspicion. Obi-Wan has a good pile of Republic credits hidden in the hut, plenty to set him for the coming years, but he doesn’t want to be flashy. That brings attention. With every trip to Dannar’s Claim and to the hills surrounding the Lars home, attention could be lethal to any idea of familiarity Obi-Wan had here. He’d have to fight, he’d be found, he’d die, probably. Or he’d have to run.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Rooh appears from her little space in the ramshackle hut, sloped face friendly and sweet. Obi-Wan smiles, patting her fondly on the snout.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Hello, Rooh,” he murmurs. His only friend bows her head and raises her front left hoof in an almost-wave. Obi-Wan feels his heart go a little soft. Animals often seemed to like him, he often wonders if it's the chance he had to go to the Agricorps if Qui-Gon hadn’t taken him as a Padawan. There was always a sprite of Force energy rooted in nature itself that pushed animals to be so kind to him.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>After collecting the water and packing it into storage cisterns, allowing them to adjust the levels of acid in the water as much as they’d like, he pauses by Rooh, staring into her bold, dark eyes. He hears someone.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>A word. A breath, a call. He snaps his head around and startles Rooh, who nudges her nose into his robes, snuffling. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>That voice was deadly familiar. They’re taunting him, the Force is taunting him. With a groan of frustration, he buries his face into Rooh’s warm neck.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ena is never coming back.</span>
</p>
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